Photography

The Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, especially the Pixel 2 XL, have been faulted for many things. But most owners are willing to forgive Google its lapses because of one thing: the phones’ unbelievably good camera performance. One of the tricks that Google has to spice up the Pixel 2’s camera is Motion Photos and now the company is sharing some of the secrets behind it. Unsurprisingly, it has a good amount of machine learning and sophisticated algorithms involved.

The Samsung marketing machine is definitely in full force. Just yesterday, DisplayMate proclaimed the Galaxy S9 to have the best smartphone display ever (at least in the OLED category). Now DxOMark is coming out with its usual review, the Galaxy S9+ specifically this time. And under its new, revamped benchmarking system, Samsung’s dual camera flagship has achieved the highest score yet, dethroning long time champion Google Pixel 2 and jumping over the iPhone X.

The digital camera and smartphone markets seem to have one thing in common. To get new features, you have to wait for or buy new models. That goes even when said features aren’t exactly dependent on newer hardware. Olympus is painting itself as a sort of revolutionary in that regard. Instead of producing and selling a new model with very small incremental changes, it is instead rolling out firmware updates for the OM-D E-M1 Mark II, OM-D E-M5 Mark II, and PEN-F, making them feel almost like new cameras all over again.

On Monday, Sony announced the upcoming launch of its latest Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless camera, the a7 III. This model boasts a bunch of features including a 24-megapixel back-illuminated Exmor R sensor. Though the camera won't be available to purchase for a few more weeks, Sony gave it to several photographers to try out, and they've shared a batch of images taken with it.

Google Clips, the company's smart camera, is finally shipping, though whether it's worth spending $249 on an AI to take your photos seems to be questionable. Announced last year alongside the Pixel 2, the standalone camera promises to use the same smarts that power Google Photos to snap stills and short videos of the entertaining things that kids and pets do to earn their keep, allowing you to stay in the moment in the process.

Lens clips for iPhones and others smartphones are nothing new. They offered interchangeable lenses, a feature that still escapes even the most advanced smartphone camera. They all, however, have the same design disadvantage. You have to attach the lenses every time you use them and detach them when done. Not only do you run the risk of losing those lenses, that’s also precious seconds lost trying to set it all up. Last year, startup Shiftcam introduced a case and lens system that resolved all those. Now they’re back with ShiftCam 2.0, a more refined and more powerful version that won’t make it look like you have an armored phone in your pocket.

MWC 2018 may still be ongoing, but camera makers are wasting no time to introduce new products to shutterbugs. In fact, they seem to be timing it well to offer refuge for those who want to graduate from smartphone cameras. To help such newcomers, Canon is launching an interesting new flash, one with a different kind of “AI”. No, not artificial intelligence but Auto Intelligent Bounce, a flash technology that automatically moves and rotates the flash head for the best bounce angle for any kind of indoor shot.

With the rise of smartphones, we've seen a lot of people spark an interest in photography, which has been a nice side effect of putting a halfway decent camera in the pocket of pretty much everyone. What happens when you're ready to graduate to something a little more advanced? Taking the plunge into the world of DSLR cameras can be a little intimidating, but Canon is hoping to make that transition smoother for a lot of people with its new EOS M50.

Amateur astronomer Victor Buso took a photo of an exploding star at a moment never before captured. In the history of humanity, no known photo has ever captured the burst of light from a supernova, and Buso did it, basically on accident. The chances of this photo capturing this moment are one in hundreds of millions.

Ricoh has introduced the Pentax K-1 Mark II, the newest flagship in its K-Series lineup. This model offers the same 35mm Full Frame sensor as the first generation, but improves certain features including low-light performance. The Mark II model is rugged and weather-resistant, sporting a compact body, a 36.4-megapixel sensor, high-grade dust removal, and more.

I use Photoshop almost every day of my life, and for the past two years, I've used Adobe Creative Cloud. When the cloud services for the whole Adobe app suite were first announced, I had reservations. Partially because I'd been using my very very old copy of Photoshop from a half-decade ago and it hadn't caused me any major trouble until then. Partially because I didn't realize how much I'd use Adobe apps if they were available in the way the company made them available with Adobe Creative Cloud.